A woman and three men were shot dead in a public execution in a Pakistani village after tribal elders found them guilty of adultery, officials said.

The death sentences were ordered by a jirga (council) of elders in the Khyber agency area on the Afghan border.

Sex outside marriage is a crime in Pakistan and tribal village councils often punish those involved with death.

Last year, Pakistan's parliament approved a new bill amending Islamic laws on rape and adultery.

The new law dropped the death penalty for people having sex outside marriage.

'Confessed'

"We found a man and a woman in a compromising position along with another man who was drunk and had already committed adultery, and the owner of the house," Haji Jan Gul, a village resident, told the news agency Reuters.

"All four confessed to adultery. We punished them according to our customs and traditions," he said.